Therapeutics such as medications have the potential to considerably improve the health and well-being of patients, but medication use is not without risk, particularly in unmonitored, out-patient settings. Despite increasing risk mitigation activities and risk communications from regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), several medications with known, preventable risks have been withdrawn from the market or placed on restricted distribution because of a lack of appropriate patient monitoring. In other cases, medications continue to be inappropriately prescribed to patients who have contraindications to a medication's use that manifest once the patient starts using the medication.
Thus, there exists a need for effective device-based risk management of therapeutics having known contraindications and/or side effects.